Abstract

In this chapter the authors investigate a tool integration perspective to support knowledge management and exchange between Web-based and traditional collaborative environments. In particular they discuss the integration between a tool (CoPe_it!) supporting collaborative argumentation and learning in Webbased communities of practices and a hypermedia and sense making tool (Compendium) acting as a personal and collective knowledge management (KM) system in traditional collaborative environments. The authors describe the tools and drive a comparative analysis of the two groupware by focusing on the general applicability of the tools integration for supporting communities of practices and, more generally, collaborative works. Moreover the authors present the results of a case study in which the tools integration has been applied within a real community of practice. Finally they discuss main results of the tools integration in order to leverage communities of practice to a truly collaborative environment with no communication boundaries.